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Analytics: (Eye)-Tracking a Potential Game-Changer

It's always a lot of fun to learn about emerging technologies and imagine ways they can become game-changers for our clients. For instance, have you read about the new eye-tracking system from a Swedish company that's being used mostly by the gaming community? When I was introduced to it, my first thought was that eye-tracking could potentially have a huge impact on those of us who do website design. Turns out I wasn't the first to think that.

As you read this, companies are in the beta stage of developing eye-tracking software that can be used to determine the effectiveness of websites based on where user's eyes travel (or don't).

Right now, the only things analytics can track are what is clickable. But those analytics don't tell us what has been seen, and that information can be huge. The questions – and answers – would be extremely useful to web developers, and ultimately to you. You could get rid of anything that clutters the message – and once and for all, prove to Sonja in Accounting that the dog scampering across your homepage has no tangible value whatsoever and is, in fact, clutter.

Or are those competing banner ads your website committee insisted on truly doing their job? Is your call-to-action button being seen, or are anyone's eyes making contact with it at all? This is what's coming. The likely result: cleaner, more efficient websites.

We work very hard to do this now with the tools we have: assure that everything on your site supports your message, so the mission of your site can be fulfilled. Innovations such as eye-tracking software will soon be an added tool beyond click-through analytics.

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Client Analytics: The Next Big Thing

If your organization is like most, you’ve probably got all these individual components you work with in a given day, clicking back and forth like a mouse-wielding ninja: your website, your client or member database (or both), your email marketing provider, and so on. And you wish there was a way to tie all that data together to get an accurate picture of the true engagement of your clients / members. Instead, you know only that you had X number of views on your website and that X number of people opened your last email newsletter, but none of that is tied to your client database.

Cue the parting clouds and choir music. i2Integration is building tools to be able to tie all that together. Client analytics: This is going to be “a thing.”

Let’s say your association has an upcoming event. You create a registration page for the website and a Constant Contact campaign to promote it. By implementing these new tools, here are some things you could find out: that associate-level members opened the email, clicked on the link to the website but did not register, but affiliate-level members from Florida opened the email, clicked to the site and did register. Or that a majority of premiere-level members started the registration process but didn’t finish. Maybe affiliate members require a different email campaign? Maybe associate members would rather register by phone? This allows you, in real time, to analyze the data and make informed decisions in the future. And as you capture this data, you establish a level of engagement and track it over time. Wouldn’t that be nice to know when dues time rolls around?

None of this is “out-of-the-box” right now, because everyone is running a different combination of systems, which means it requires some customization via coding.

Before you ask, no, this won’t require a second mortgage. But when it comes to saving you in more accurate segmented marketing, eliminating false starts, redundancies, errors and inefficiencies created by moving data from one medium to another, it will pay for itself very quickly.

Ten years ago, nobody knew what a content management system was. Now everyone does, and nearly everyone has one. In a matter of years, every website will be doing Client Analytics as a matter of course.

Do you need a tech advocate? The 50k question

Sooner or later your organization will be looking to implement some type of new system, whether that’s a Content Management System, a Client Relationship Management System, an email marketing system, Document Management System or the like. There are so many factors when choosing one over the others, and the choices are seemingly endless, especially with cloud-based varieties. That’s both a good thing and a bad thing. Today, with a credit card and two minutes, you could install a whole new system for your organization. But is it the right system? Is it going to integrate with your other systems? Is it scalable, so it grows as your organization grows? Can you modify it to make it your own?

Before making the decision, even before you put out that RFP, it makes all kinds of sense to get the advice of a technology advocate. Just as a healthcare advocate guides you through the maze of choices to find the best medical solution, a tech advocate who has no skin in the game, who gets no reward for recommending one software system over the others but will look at your needs objectively and find the right solution for you. A tech advocate comes in with a toolbelt, not a hammer.

Recently, we determined that a national association looking to implement a particular CMS would outgrow the website the day it went live because that CMS didn’t have the functionality the association needed to tie the website to their member management system. This association was very close to committing 50k to a system that would not have worked for what they wanted right out of the gate. Our team at i2Integration recommended a different CMS, one that gave them more flexibility with the features they needed and the foundation for growth -- for the same cost as the one they had first selected.

There’s obviously a cost associated with engaging with a tech advocate, but false starts or adopting a system that ends up being wrong for your organization is going to end up costing you ten-fold.

How Headless CMS is delivering better web content to your audience

There’s a saying when it comes to the web: content is king. That is true enough, but it’s also true that many association websites have volumes of content that is obsolete or content that is wholly irrelevant to large swaths of their visiting audience.

Wouldn’t it be awesome if the content being provided was custom tailored to each individual visitor as they arrived based upon their interest, their demographic, device used, and appeared or disappeared based on a schedule? It’s here now, and it has a name: the headless CMS.

It’s a terrible name. Why throw in a word that conjures scary thoughts for something that is actually very cool? That’s what happens when tech people make marketing decisions!

What is a headless CMS (content management system)?

If you’ve used WordPress, Drupal, DNN or other similar tools before, you already know what a traditional CMS is. Those types of CMS’s have two parts:

Part 1: the back-end content. This is the text, documents, images and stuff you create.

Part 2: the front-end display. This is the page or screen where your content is displayed.

A traditional CMS manages both parts, controlling the content and the display.

In contrast, a Headless CMS deals with only Part 1, the actual creation and management of the content. With headless CMS, you just create and manage the content, set the rules of who should see versions of the content and from there, it’s sent to display wherever you want it to whether that’s a mobile app, a website, an application, a smart watch/speaker, VR or other devices and platforms.

Here’s some advantages of a headless CMS:

Create content once and have it automatically distributed across a wide number of devices, platforms and applications. Saves administration time.

Assign rules to content. For example: display tailored content if the visitor is a registered member, lives in a certain location, has visited certain pages, and is signed up for an upcoming event! If need be, you can get incredibly granular in how custom the content is. This definitely helps to better engage and talk directly to members.

Because you’re just managing content (instead of content and the entire website), it’s easier to delegate content administration with less training required.

Content can be scheduled to automatically appear or disappear, decluttering your website and apps.

As organizations increasingly look to use analytics and segmented marketing to better acquire and retain members, headless CMS is a potentially powerful new tool to place content as king once more.

Want more info on what a Headless CMS can do for you? i2Integration is happy to assist in strategic discussions, or the implementation of a new CMS for your organization. Call us at 517.371.3931 or email Lisa, Director of Business Development, at lpowers@i2Integration for details.

Ford Announces Release of SYNC 3 Emulator

For those looking to build mobile apps for the automotive world, this is a very big deal! The Ford SYNC 3 AppLink Emulator helps developers create mobile apps for Ford vehicles that are equipped with the SYNC 3 infotainment system. The emulator allows a smartphone to connect to the developer’s workstation as though it would normally connect with SYNC 3. From there, developers can accurately build their apps and see exactly how their app will function in a SYNC 3 vehicle. This new capability, released free by Ford, will dramatically speed the development, testing and deployment times for new apps coming soon to Ford vehicles.

As i2Integration provides the technology support of the Ford Developer Program, including website, mobile apps, global hosting and data integration, we see the release of the SYNC 3 Emulator as a powerful addition to bringing new developers to the Program. With more than 15 million SYNC-equipped vehicles on the road globally (and 43 million expected by 2020), that’s a tremendous amount of potential for the mobile developer market.

For Ford and i2, it's exciting times ahead.

Four Ways to Trim Your Website Redesign Cost

Reducing costs shouldn’t mean sacrificing quality. And when it comes to web redesign, there are reasonable compromises that can be made in order to get what you need and keep the project within budget.

Go with a template design. What used to be one of the major expenses in a website redesign was the actual design, because lo’ those many years ago, every website was created from scratch. Now there are thousands of templates available that you can leverage and with only minimal changes, can make them look completely your own. The nice thing also, is that most themes already have mobile-responsiveness and UI/UX goodies baked into them. Going with a pre-designed theme won’t completely eliminate design, but it will definitely reduce the time needed in coding the architecture of the design.

Migrate your own content. One of the major time-sinks in a site redesign is moving content from the old site to the new or placing new content. This isn’t usually a difficult and technical task, but just extremely time consuming. We see anywhere from half an hour to 45 minutes per page to clean and move content. With a little bit of training, this task could easily be done in-house by your staff and potentially save hundreds of hours in cost.

Reduce custom development. As soon as you want to build anything custom, the ol’ cost-o-meter starts spinning. Is there a way to leverage something that’s already out there? And if what’s out there can’t do everything you need it to do, is there one that is open source -- meaning you get access to the original code -- , one that could be modified without having to build from scratch? One question to ask your developer when they tell you “This may be custom” is, “Is there something already out there we can modify?”

Think of your redesign as a sprint, not a stroll. If you keep the project within a tight timeline and have all your ducks in a row before the redesign begins, costs can be kept to a minimum. If, for whatever reasons, your schedule is more loose than it could be or you don’t have all your content ready, the timeline can drag out. In a lot of cases, drawing a redesign out over a longer period of time only draws out more costs. Making the timeline aggressive can keep costs in line.

Help! I Want to Build a Mobile App.

We see it with both startups and established companies: They want to build a mobile application. They have a vision, but need help with the details. Is it even feasible? How much will it cost? What's involved?

If you've hit these questions, you've at least addressed the basics of whether or not the app has potential. In essence, whether you're a startup or this is a value added to your organization, you should create a mini business plan for your app -- especially if it is intended to be a revenue-generator.

OK, now on to the meaty stuff:

1. Have you created a Vision Document?

This is critical. This is the floorplan. This is what creates the final deliverable and ultimately determines cost, timeline, phases and expectations. Without it, you're flying entirely blind. Worse, you're flying blind and don't even know how much fuel you’ve got!

Your vision doc needs to spell out in detail:

Specific functionality (I want it to do this, and then this…)

A walk-through of the app. Step-by-step, screen by screen. (If I click this, then it does this…)

Also, don't forget the things you need that are outside the app (reports, billing integration, etc.)

2. Have you thought through the business logic needed in the app?

Forms and front-end can be simple. It's the back-end logic where things get complex and time-consuming. An example of business logic might be:

Does every user have the same rights and functionality, or are there special features available based on user, or their group, etc?

Are there workflow requirements? For example, one user creates something, but another has to approve it before moving it along the process.

Does the user have multiple paths s/he can take during a process (whatever that process is)? How are those paths decided? Automatically? User choice? Based on some kind of data it's checking?

Remember, if some combination of business logic only happens once, it still needs to be planned for in programming. Run scenarios to catch it all.

3. What are the minimum features needed to roll out the app?

Does the app need everything completed in order to roll out, or can it be done in phases? What are the minimum Phase 1 requirements? Rolling out the app in phases can save cost and implementation time.

4. Do you have a guinea pig?

One important way to save cost is to first create a wireframe mockup (with clickable buttons, etc.) and then run/beta test by your guinea pigs. What did they like? What would they change? What's not needed? It's amazing how many times the one feature you like (which might take up 60% of development time and cost) ends up being something your users can take or leave. Finding this out early can be a huge cost-saver.

FYI: Everything we just talked about? We can absolutely help you with that. Find out more at www.i2integration.com.

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